How to Never Lose Your Creativity

This week it hit me that my creativity fluctuates from activity to activity. For instance, last week I could not find it in me to write a single post, but I created more recipes than I have in a long time. At first I started to panic, thinking I had writers block, I was losing momentum on the blog, I was going to be a failure... all the things ego just loves to tell us. At some point, I decided to just let it go.
If my creativity has decided it wants to focus on something else at this time, so be it. Cooking is another one of my passions that I intensely love. During a week where I also had to do a ton of writing professionally for other projects, sitting down to write even more felt draining. In the kitchen I was able to get into that "flow" that psychologists talk about - where you get deeply immersed in an activity you love, tap into inner resources you didn't know you had, and find true happiness. And I came to realize that I am lucky to have many activities that can do this for me, writing and cooking being only two of them.

I am grateful that the creativity shifts from one passion to the other. I have learned the hard way that when you focus solely on one thing that brings you joy, eventually it gets burnt out and becomes something stressful. This is what happened to me as a pastry chef - I had to force the passion on days I would rather be doing something else, and in turn, lost my passion for it. Now, when doing something I love feels like work, I step away. I don't want to lose the magic that I feel when words flow through my fingers, or when I can create a bowl that satisfies all the cravings.

It also means that I have to release my perfectionistic tendencies. It is SO HARD for me to not post when I have a schedule set up. My mind is a master catastrophizing what will happen (it never runs out of creativity - funny, isn't it?). There has been some serious self love and self care this week to move past it. Oddly enough, most of it happened in the kitchen! Maybe that's the whole trick behind this - instead of focusing on what you "should" be doing, focus instead on turning something you love into a deep form of self care. Whether it is writing, cooking, running, swimming, crafting, building, reading... find that thing that brings you flow and lose yourself in the healing magic it holds for you.